Presentation obscures the real content

A novel aspect of the Budget statement by Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy yesterday was the announcement of the specifics of the Government’s decentralisation programme promised in December 1999.

Departments and agencies are being transferred to 53 centres in all 25 counties outside Dublin. The whole thing sounds attractive, but it has the aspects of a political confidence trick designed to distract people.

There may be plenty of continuing tax relief for the wealthy business people who have invested in the various programmes that are being extended, but there is very little in this budget for the people who pay most of the income tax the PAYE workers. It is not just that they are getting very little, but they are going to be asked to pay a lot more.

This Government promised that only 20% of tax payers would be in the highest bracket, but last year, because there was no indexation of the tax bands, the figure actually rose from 27.9% to 30.5%, and it will rise further to 33.4% in the coming year. Some 62,000 more people are going to be drawn into the higher tax bracket.

This is being obscured by the decentralisation announcements.

For the first time, whole departments, including the ministers and their senior management, are to be transferred.

Eight departments will be moved to eight different counties. The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism is being moved to Killarney in the constituency of the current minister, John O'Donoghue, but that can be justified as it is the country's prime tourist area.

On the other hand, Communications, Marine and Natural Resources are to be transferred to Cavan. They are all currently included in the one portfolio, but over the years such combinations have frequently changed. One must therefore ask if the Government could have found any place further from the sea than Cavan for the Department of the Marine?

Of course, An Bord Iascaigh Mhara is being transferred to Clonakilty, but could that be further from Cavan? Given this Government's record, some may be pleasantly surprised that cabinet ministers actually passed up the chance of sharing out the departments among their own constituencies, but the distribution is still quite restrictive.

The other counties to which departments are to be transferred are Mayo, Laois, Kildare, Westmeath, Louth and Wexford, and the Office of Public Works is to be moved to Meath. It should be immediately apparent that six of those nine counties are in Leinster. How long will it be before people begin to ask for a fairer distribution throughout the whole country?

Previously, the decentralisation programme involved the relocation of 4,000 civil service jobs, and the minister projected that the latest announcement should lead to the relocation of at least 10,300 jobs.

But he stressed that "there will be no redundancies and, as on previous occasions, the payment of removal or relocation expenses will not arise."

The various departments will be furnished with a centralised suite of offices, with a "small secretariat" close to the Leinster House to conduct business "when the Dáil is in session", according to the minister. What is going to happen during those ever-growing periods when the Dáil is not in session?

Many of the more senior members of staff are likely to be already settled with families in Dublin, and a move to one of the provincial centres will entail uprooting their children from schools. This is unlikely to be attractive for many. Only three of 31 staff members agreed to move with the Free Legal Board to Caherciveen.

If the move is purely voluntary and the civil servants decide not to move, are we going to be left with the kind of bureaucratic limbo, where those who decide to stay in Dublin do nothing other than collect their salaries?

For months Mr McCreevy was warning of a harsh Budget, but then this week came the news that Exchequer returns have been much better than expected. The projected deficit of €1.87bn was lowered to €1.5bn and is likely to go even lower.

The increases in the so-called 'old reliables' were therefore quite moderate and raised hardly a murmur of dissent during the minister's address.

The excise duty on alcohol was not touched, but the price of cigarettes went up by 25¢ for a packet of 20 , with a pro-rata increase on other tobacco products. The measures are expected to raise almost €61m by the end of next year.

Smokers are already paying a savage amount of excise duty. The latest rise could further boost cigarette smuggling, or it could have a healthy impact in persuading some to give up smoking and others, especially young people, not to take up such an expensive habit.

The 5c increase in the price of a litre of petrol has the advantage of using a smaller measure than many people would have been used to over the years. The increase amounts to 22.7c on a gallon of petrol, which provides a better perspective on the true impact of the increase. Like so much about this budget, the presentation has obscured the real content.